Navigating Media Work: The Moral Psychology of Emerging Adults in Media-Related Fields

This book offers a distinctive in-depth portrait of the moral perspectives and motivations of graduates in media-related fields. It will interest moral psychology, primarily journalism, public relations, advertising, and media/communication, psychology, philosophy, and business. Navigating Media Work offers a distinctive in-depth portrait of the moral perspectives and motivations of more than 100 recent college graduates in media-related fields, and how they have navigated the challenges of life and work after college. Building on hundreds of hours of life story interviews and a multifaceted set of surveys, this volume provides a profile of graduates coming out of media-related majors and heading into the workplace. The book contributes to theorizing about moral formation and growth in media graduates – particularly character and virtue development – by charting moral growth and a solidifying moral identity shaped by life experiences from childhood through college to the workplace amid a rich network of relationships. It also adds to cross-disciplinary understanding of the moral psychology of emerging adults. It explores important implications for the pedagogy of media ethics and professional ethics more broadly, as well as insights for management and for the ethical practice of emerging adults entering the workplace across fields. This book will interest graduate students and faculty with interests in moral psychology: primarily journalism, public relations, advertising, and media/communication, but also psychology, philosophy, and business.